Recent reports of UK based managed service provider Cheriton shutting down are just now coming out and I felt it was important to make a few comments. This was a relatively small managed service provider; they were not a member of the MSPAlliance but we still have empathy for those fellow service providers across the world who support their customers each and every day.
Details about the company's demise appear to center around a debt owed to Dell, which was called in suddenly. When Cheriton couldn't pay, and Dell (according to press reports from Cheriton's owner) woud not accept payment terms, forced the MSP's hand and shut them down.
Personally, I have seen a lot of disputes between vendors and managed service providers and I can honestly say there are cases where the managed service providers were in the right, and those where the vendors were in the right. I can't say which party is in the right here, and I have no intention to discuss hypotheticals.
I do, however, wish to express sadness for the one group that is unmistakably going to be harmed in all of this and they are the customers of Cheriton. To my knowledge, these customers never did anything to cause the demise of Cheriton, and had no part to play in this relationship, other than they were recipients of managed IT services from their provider Cheriton. No matter how this dispute resolves itself I would hope that the customers do not view this experience as indicative of the entirety of the managed services profession.
MSPAlliance and its board members take these matters very seriously and have become very concerned about protecting the consumers of managed services and cloud. In fact, MSPAlliance Board members penned an open letter to address this matter in the hopes of starting an honest and well-needed dialogue between service providers across the globe in regards to consumer protection.
In closing, I re-emphasize the fact that most MSPs do not fail due to technical problems. Rather, most managed service providers fail due to business and financial risk exposure. It is precisely for this reason we believe the best way to protect customers of managed services and cloud computing is through the managed services and cloud certifications (the UCS). Become involved today!
